Teachers test the Government

Can the Government pass the teachers’ test? Industrial action by primary teachers is arguably an even bigger challenge for this union-friendly and education-focused Government than strikes by nurses were. A week of rolling strikes means this dispute will be in the news from Monday to Friday. Auckland went first and Wellington goes last. Everyone else gets one of the three days in the middle.

The offer to nurses, which they accepted in August, was estimated to be worth $520 million. By contrast, the latest offer to teachers is worth $700m.

Neither case was purely about money. Nurses complained of being overworked and underresourced and the Government’s offer came with 500 more nurses. Similarly, primary teachers say they are concerned about class sizes and workloads. But there is no question that teachers have also been long undervalued in dollar terms.

The offer would see most teachers getting a 9 per cent pay rise over three years, with the top rates for teachers with degrees reaching $82,992 by 2020. Teachers with diplomas could also earn the same amount, removing an unfair adjustment that saw them as worth less than teachers with degrees. Pay for those with graduate diplomas and masters degrees would rise to $85,481 by 2020.

That would mean a salary rise of between $9500 and $11,000 for most teachers. Principals would get staggered pay rises of 9 per cent or 13.4 per cent, depending on the size of their schools.

The Ministry of Education’s $700m offer was sweetened by the Government’s recent announcement of funding for 600 new learning support co-ordinators to increase special needs resourcing in schools.

On one hand, it might seem hard for the Government to say there is no more money with which to pay and resource teachers when the economy is performing better than predicted. On the other hand, the gulf between the teachers’ expectations and the Government’s offer seems impossibly vast.

The Employment Relations Authority (ERA) has called the teachers’ expectations ‘‘unrealistic’’. The ERA mediated last-minute negotiations between teaching union the New Zealand Educational Institute (NZEI) and the Government that produced the revised offer on Thursday.

In its recommendation that teachers accept the offer, the ERA called it ‘‘a handsome and competitive proposal in the current fiscal environment’’. The gap between the Government’s $700m offer and the $2.5 billion cost of the NZEI’S wish list spoke of the ‘‘total unreality’’ of the teachers’ case, the ERA said.

The NZEI says the Government’s latest offer came too late for the strike to be called off.

It is always hard to see past dollars and cents when assessing disputes and negotiations in other sectors. The non-teachers among us can understand comparative pay levels and percentages but find it harder to evaluate workload and time pressures in any meaningful way. But most of us will have been struck by the commitment and dedication of teachers we encounter, and their availability at all hours.

If teachers are saying their workloads are unsustainable and are driving people out of the profession, we have to listen. The same teachers are saying the strike is not about the money, which has led Education Minister Chris Hipkins to say the offer can be ‘‘reconfigured’’. There is no way of knowing what a reconfiguration might look like.

For now, though, teachers still have public sympathy on their side.

‘‘Most of us will have been struck by the commitment and dedication of teachers we encounter.’’